Nebraska couple follows winding path to Catholicism

Published: 2007-03-05

LINCOLN, Neb. (CNS) -- For Bruce and Molly Hartford of Lincoln, the path to Catholicism was winding. When they first met she wouldn't date him because he was an atheist and she, a strong evangelical Protestant, would only date Christians. At the time he was taking his widowed grandmother to Methodist services, where the preacher tried to convert him. He said he began to read the Bible to find ways to rebut the preacher's and Molly's arguments for Christianity, but that backfired. Instead he became a believer and was baptized. The Hartfords subsequently began dating and eventually married. They attended an evangelical church in Fremont and later, when they moved to Lincoln, a nondenominational church. Bruce Hartford's disagreements with Protestant theology led him to read extensively and to discuss religious questions with Catholic co-workers, however. Drawn to Catholicism, he finally enrolled in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program at North American Martyrs Parish, but Molly Hartford resisted. "I was not going to become Catholic," she said. The two told the Southern Nebraska Register, Lincoln diocesan newspaper, that they discussed and debated the RCIA material almost nightly after the children were asleep. They also started reading David Currie's book, "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic." Molly Hartford said that when they got to the chapter on authority late last year, she suddenly realized, "Catholicism didn't contradict what I believed. It was everything I believed, but it gave it much more fullness." At the Easter Vigil the Hartfords and their children will be received into the church together.

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